Ohio's First People

The Mound BuildersAbout 3,000 years ago, a group of Indians known as the Moundbuilders made their home in Ohio. A mound is a hard-packed pile of dirt and stone. Inside the mounds, archeologists have founnd many artifacts that tells us about their way of life, or culture. Artifacts are objects made by people in the past. The two groups of Moundbuilders in Ohio were the Adena and the Hopewell.

A Land Bridge There were not always people in North America. The first people to come to North America came from Asia on a land bridge. This bridge of dry land showed during an ice age when much Earth's water was frozen into glaciers, making the levels of water in the ocean lower than normal.

Ohio's First People

Land Bridge Comic

Prehistoric Indians of OhioBelow are groups of prehistoric Indians, meaning they were around before written history.

Early PeopleThe first people to arrive were nomads, or people without a permanent home. They traveled in small groups called bands from place to place following the animals they hunted for their meat and fur.

Click to learn about Paleo IndiansClick to learn about Archaic Indians

Fort Ancient Indians The last group of prehistoric Indians in Ohio were the Fort Ancient Indians. These Indians built villages of square or circle shaped houses. They were like Adena and the Hopewell in many ways, including that they built mounds and hunted. However, the Adena and Hopewell gathered all their food from nature while the Fort Ancient Indians depended on farming for their food. It was a group of Fort Ancient Indians that built the Serpent Mound in what is now Adams County.